ABOUT
Eviatar Slivnik is a jazz drummer and composer from Israel, currently based in New York City. He began playing drums at age 8 and trained at the Arison School of Arts and Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts. At 15, he made his international debut at the Savannah Jazz Festival with the group Sharp 5. He received the Israeli Ministry of Culture’s Outstanding Musician Award and a jazz scholarship from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation.
After high school, Eviatar studied at the Rimon Jazz Institute, where he was awarded Best Jazz Player in 2015. That same year, he was selected to represent the Rimon Jazz Institute at the IASJ (International Association of Schools of Jazz) Conference in Lisbon, led by jazz legend Dave Liebman. He later earned a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music, supported by the Bracha Foundation, and studied under Ralph Peterson Jr. and Terence Blanchard. He graduated in 2018 with a degree in Jazz Performance and relocated to New York City.
Eviatar is a regular performer at New York’s finest jazz clubs, including Smalls Jazz Club, Mezzrow, Zinc Bar, Minton’s Playhouse, and Ornithology Jazz Club, both as a sideman and as a bandleader presenting his own compositions and arrangements. He tours and records with many of today’s top jazz artists, including Grammy winner Samara Joy, Aaron Goldberg, Eli Degibri, David Kikoski, Avishai Cohen, Yotam Silberstein, Darren Barrett, Gilad Hekselman, Ben Solomon, and Dayna Stephens. He performed with Samara Joy at the DC Jazz Festival and Low Country Jazz Festival, and toured Mexico with Aaron Goldberg.
Eviatar has recorded on albums led by Eli Degibri, Omer Avital, Tom Oren (winner of the Thelonious Monk Institute Piano Competition), Gabriel Chakarji, and others. In 2022, he released his debut album as a leader, First Out of the Sliv.
His international appearances include major jazz festivals such as Jazz à Juan (France), Jarasum Jazz Festival (South Korea), Monte Carlo Jazz Festival (Monaco), Kaunas Jazz Festival (Lithuania), Eivissa Jazz Festival (Spain), and the Red Sea Jazz Festival (Israel). He has played at renowned venues including Blue Note Beijing, Blue Note Milano, Duc des Lombards (Paris), Moods Jazz Club (Zurich), Café Central (Madrid), and Blues Alley (Washington, D.C.).
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Eviatar co-founded Drivin’ Jazz, a socially distanced drive-in jazz venue in Israel with saxophonist Alexander Levin, featuring artists such as Shai Maestro and Gilad Hekselman.
He continues to perform, tour, and record actively as part of the international jazz community, maintaining a strong presence in New York and abroad.
PRESS
Walla
The Dreamers
Feature article about Eviatar Slivnik and Alexander Levin and their concert at the Jerusalem Jazz Festival
Time Out
Drivin' Jazz -
The Thing to Do
An article about Slivnik/Levin Drivin' Jazz project in time out magazine.
Ha'aertz
Ten New Jazz Albums
You Must Hear (2022)
Yotam Ziv from Ha'aertz newspaper recommends "First out of the Sliv" as one of his top 10 albums of the year 2022
The Sideman
Two Concerts in Israel
Feature article about Eviatar Slivnik and his performances in Israel in the jazz blog "The Sideman" by Yair Spiegel